TweakTown News Posts - Page 2073

We've all heard of Razer's $2800 gaming notebook, Blade, a 17-inch insanely cool laptop. It's expensive when compared to other laptops, but hey, Razer has their followers and I really thought they'd sell well, but not this well.

Razer shared news of this on their Facebook page, where they revealed that the "overwhelming demand" for the Razer Blade has depleted their first wave of units, where they sold out in 30 minutes. How big this "first wave" was, is anyones guess. It could be 100, 1000 or 10,000.

Were you one of the lucky few to get your hands on the Razer Blade gaming laptop? Or do you know anyone who got their hands on it? If so, shoot me an e-mail and let me know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Facebook are now expected to raise $5 billion in a preliminary IPO prospectus on Wednesday morning. This is much less than expected, but could balloon out from here based on investor demand "according to sources close to the deal," reports the International Financing Review.

The smaller deal is reportedly reflecting a decision to start with a conservative base, before deciding whether to increase. Facebook has chosen to hire five bookrunners including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and JP Morgan. This list could grow, also.

Facebook are expected to finalise the IPO process by May, if everything goes right with the registration process with the SEC. It has been reported that Facebook have been "unusually guarded" about the process for selecting banks involved in the underwriting syndicate. Obviously because this would be not only a stressful move, but a very strategic move for their future growth.

Later this year, and much more in 2013, we should see Kinect on, or in, notebooks. Ultrabooks are set to be the new craze, Windows 8 will power these new Ultrabooks and Microsoft wants to step in between and place a Kinect motion-based device.

The Daily has some "sources inside Redmond" who have been kind enough to give some details on the upcoming Kinect-powered Windows 8 portables. It has been stated that it will be an "exclusive relationship," where Microsoft will license the technology out to manufacturers such as ASUS, but with conditions. Partners using Kinect won't be allowed to use competing motion-control tech in their devices, for example.

Prototypes are "in the wild," where Microsoft technicians have used them in places with a lot of audio and visual background noise, such as coffee shops and bars. It's also been said that Kinect absolutely kills battery life. One solution mentioned hints toward a clip-on unit, with its own battery pack.

Well, well, doesn't this look quite sexy indeed. Research in Motion's (RIM) much-anticipated next-generation BlackBerry phone has been unveiled. The next phone has been codenamed "London", and today it receives its official name "BlackBerry 10."

BlackBerry 10 looks like its slick looking BlackBerry PlayBook with rounded corners and an all-black look. London is going for a U.K. launch (who wouldn't thunk it) and is due "later this year." The U.S. market will receive BlackBerry 10, but dubbed "Laguna" and "Lisbon" and will hit AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon.

CrackBerry thinks we could see Laguna and Lisbon launch prior to London. Considering BlackBerry is still the number one smartphone in the U.K., RIM has its work cut out for itself if it wants to make a big splash across the pond. Let's talk hardware, shall we. CrackBerry have heard that both Texas Instruments OMAP5 and Qualcomm chipsets are being tested, both 1.5GHz dual-core processors.

Apple are having to appeal a Chinese court ruling in December of last year, where they were rejected of iPad trademark ownership in China. This could open up Apple to trademark infringement lawsuits from a local company. Apple filed an appeal on January 5 with the Higher People's Court of Guangdong Province, according to a statement from Proview International.

Proview International is a small Chinese display monitor company that claims control over the iPad trademark in mainland China, and the same company that is stirring up a storm over at Apple. Apple had originally filed a lawsuit against Proview to take control of the trademark, but back in December of last year, the Shenzhen Municipal Intermediate People's Court rejected Apple's claim.

Within the lawsuit, Apple claimed that a Proview subsidiary in Taiwan had actually sold the iPad trademark rights to a U.K.-based company called "IP Applications." From there, the trademark rights were then sold to Apple in 2010. The Shenzhen court ruled the transfer of trademark rights were only made through Proview's Taiwan subsidiary. Proview's Shenzhen-based company did not actually attend trademark negotiations, and did not formally transfer any trademark rights, according to the court.

LG is set to release a triple-SIM phone, the LG A290, in Russia. The phone features support for not one, or two, but three SIM cards. This is a great feature as people can now let carriers, choose you. Well, not quite, but you can throw three SIM cards into the phone and switch between them, depending on what benefits you from the carrier.

The LG A290 sports a 2.2-inch display with a resolution of just 176x220, a 1.3-megapixel camera with flashlight, and a 1500 mAh battery. It also fits into a fairly small phone that measures in at just 113.5 x 51 x 12.95mm. It's currently unknown if all three SIM cards can be active at the same time, or not.

The A290 should arrive in Russia by late-February for about 75.

What do you think of this triple-SIM business? I really think we need more of this in high-end smartphones, where we can choose between carriers, based on their rates, special times, etc. But unfortunately, it's only in Russia, carrier chooses you.

Rovio Mobile, the guys and gals behind the crazy successful Angry Birds, has enjoyed much success with their bird-slinging game. Right up to the point where chief executive, Mikael Hed told the Midem conference in Cannes this morning:

We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products. We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy.

Hed explained that Rovio sees it as "futile" to go after pirates through the courts, apart from when it feels the products they are selling are harmful to the Angry Birds brand, or ripping off its fans. Rovio see piracy as a way to attract more fans, even if its not making money from it. This is where Hed is quoted with:

Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day.

Nearly twelve months ago, I wrote a news piece about the launch of AMD's Radeon HD 6990 where I said it "punches all other GPU's in the nuts", and it seemed to be a catchy title, that just spilled out of my mind, into my hands, and onto the screen. A lot of what I type happens this way, I guess it's just my hektik writing skillz, maybe.

Anyway, a leaked roadmap for AMD's Radeon HD 7000 series has found its way onto the tubes, and it unveils the Q2 2012 launch of AMD's dual-GPU HD 7990, which will most likely kick every other GPU in the nuts this time. Exact launch timing, is "TBD", but there are some other tid bits included in the roadmap.

We should expect the HD 7870 "Pitcairn XT" to sport 2GB of RAM, and the HD 7850 "Pitcairn Pro" to also sport 2GB of RAM. Launch timing on these two GPUs are an expected March launch, which isn't too far away. Next up we have the HD 7770 "Cape Verde XT" and HD 7750 "Cape Verde Pro", both sporting 1GB of memory and have launch times of just two weeks from now on the 15th of February.

Welcome to a new stage of news posts from TweakTown, where driver releases will now receive their own "DriverTT" name, which makes them stick out from the crowd of news and other posts that make the front page. This saves them from taking up a "Download of the Day" bit, too. Let's get right into it, shall we?

NVIDIA have today released their GeForce R295 beta drivers which come in the form of the GeForce 295.51 drivers. The drivers are made available for both desktop and notebook GeForce GPUs running either Windows 7 or Vista. They are also made available for Windows XP, but only for desktop GPUs. Highlights of the 295.51 beta drivers include:

Adds SLI profile profiles for several new games, such as Mass Effect 3, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and Oil Rush.

Adds or updates 3D Vision profiles for many new games, such as The Adventures of Tintin, The Haunted: Hells Reach, Tera, and Tropico 4.

In a curious move, Valve have made some of their titles available through a rival digital distribution platform, Impulse. Impulse was acquired in 2011 by GameStop, which is another curious move. When your main source of income is from selling games, it would make sense to have some of PC's biggest games available on your platform.

Valve's games are now available through Impulse, which include Left 4 Dead and its sequel, Portal 2, The Half-Life Complete Collection and The Orange Box. Strangely, all games require Steam activation, which means you'd have to be using Steam at the end of the day. This hasn't affected Impulse, where they've said in a blog post:

Some of the greatest, most creative games of the past decade (and the one before that) are now available! Legendary developer/publisher Valve is now available! Whether you enjoy hitting things with crowbars, the power of gravity, making holes in walls or making large holes in the undead, Valve's games will suck you in and won't let you go! There's more quality gameplay here than you can shake a crowbar at!

I do like the last bit, "there's more quality gameplay here than you can shake a crowbar at!" Nice skills there, Impulse.